EIT Health VentureLab Weekend 2016

EIT Health VentureLab Weekend

EIT Health VentureLab Weekend took place on November 18 - 20,2016, aiming to help aspiring entrepreneurs in healthcare, healthy ageing and medical business sound and test their ideas, develop business models and pitch to an international jury. This edition was organized in collaboration with UMCG, EIT Health, and VentureLab International.

The EIT Health VentureLab Weekend focused on, but was not limited to the following topics:

29 participants joined the weekend forming 10 teams to work on the problems of health, drug development and healthy lifestyle & education about it, supported by a team of facilitators and coaches.

Facilitators

Neil Sheridan,Facilitator of the EIT Health VLW

Neil Sheridan

Neil Sheridan is CEO and founder of SVPI, LLC. SVPI assists corporations, small and medium-sized businesses and large non-profit clients with performance and sustainable profitability through service innovation and commercialization strategies. With over 20 years of management consulting and development experience, Neil has taught thousands of participants on organizational strategy and development. He has worked with hundreds of companies on marketing, financial management, team recruitment, selling and funding issues. Neil is an expert facilitator who has helped create successful organizational development or turnaround strategies by fostering effective communications and consensus among leaders, board members and professionals.

Neil chairs the Entrepreneurship Task Force for the Small Business Association of Michigan, which works on advocating for pro-growth policies helping small businesses. He serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Windsor in Canada and as a guest lecturer at other universities.

Neil has extensive leadership experience as an executive, board member and consultant for banking, securities, insurance, energy, higher education, healthcare, manufacturing, government and not-for-profit organizations. He has also served as an interim chief executive in profit and non-profit settings.

Neil serves as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation on Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants, including on electronics, photonics, IT, energy, materials and life sciences ventures. He also assists with other national and regional business growth initiatives. In 2013, the United States Secretary of Commerce appointed him to the District Export Council for Michigan. Neil's work as a senior consultant, executive coach, keynote speaker and university lecturer has taken place in the United States, the Netherlands, China, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, France and Canada. Neil holds US and EU dual citizenship and is conversationally fluent in German.

He earned an MBA in Finance at New York University, a Master of Science degree in Information Technology at Kettering, and a Bachelor degree in International Affairs at Drew University. He is a doctoral researcher with the Institute of Innovation and Governance Studies at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Neil actively supports causes for education, technology entrepreneurship, workforce development and economic improvement. He has served on numerous industry, governmental and academic boards.

Prof. dr. Aard Groen, Dean UGCE

Aard Groen

Aard Groen holds a double position: he is a professor of Innovative Entrepreneurship at the University of Twente, and leads since 2001 NIKOS, the Netherlands Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship. He is also since 2012 professor of Entrepreneurship and Valorisation at the University of Groningen, and is dean of entrepreneurship at the University of Groningen Centre of Entrepreneurship. Groen leads the development of Venturelab International, started as Venturelab Twente and now also as Venturelab North (VLN) in Groningen, where VLN is focusing on a.o. energy and health businesses.

Groen teaches on innovation, entrepreneurship, marketing and business development, and researches processes of entrepreneurship in several settings. In Venturelabs we not only support entrepreneurial processes, but also develop new forms of research of entrepreneurial processes by means of a systematic quality/monitor system. Other settings are social-economic deprived areas for social entrepreneurship as well in rural areas in North-Eastern Netherlands, in cities in such as Groningen and Enschede, and international in a.o. India & Columbia. Finally, also in existing firms we do engaged research on corporate entrepreneurship, for example for process industries in North-Eastern Netherlands, but also in several international settings, such as Russia, China, India, and Mexico.

Aard Groen has published several chapters in books and in journals such as Journal of Management, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technovation, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

Coaches

Paula Englis

Prof. Paula Danskin Englis (LinkedIn)Paula's primary areas are strategy and entrepreneurship. She teaches, researches and consults in the areas of strategy, knowledge intensive entrepreneurship, and knowledge management. She actively works closely with current and former students and other clients to help them start and grow their businesses. She has worked with firms in a number of high tech industries such as online communities that facilitate swapping (paperbackswap.com), web design platforms (dynamix), intelligent software that makes searches more effective (ixreveal & uReka!), pop culture products with global appeal (palisades marketing), dog training & boarding (Shelly's Boarding School for Dogs), gas stations (PetroPlus), photography geared for college student weddings (Izziah), firewood (Premier Firewood), and personal financial management (Telos Financial Management). These are just a few of the firms she has advised through the start-up and/or growth process. Besides her work at Berry College, she is also affiliated with the Dutch Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship (Nikos) at the University of Twente and the business accelerator VentureLab International.

Basil Englis

Prof. Basil G. Englis (LinkedIn)Dr. Basil G. Englis, Ph.D. is the Richard Edgerton Professor of Marketing and Chair of the Marketing Department in the Campbell School of Business at Berry College. He is also a Research Fellow at NIKOS – The Dutch Institute for the Study of Knowledge-Intensive Entrepreneurship, at the University of Twente, The Netherlands.Dr. Basil is also a Managing Partner at Mind/Share, Inc., a boutique research firm that provides a full suite of custom research services to its clients including a broad range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. It has the experience, resources, and the capabilities to design and field methodologically sound consumer research, to collect data following well-established scientific approaches, to analyze and interpret data, to effectively communicate the project’s findings, and to meet project deadlines.

David Holwerda

David Holwerda (LinkedIn)David is founder by Reconcept • Medicatie-veiligheid.nl • e-Health innovator. Reconcept has a mission to change the world of healthcare IT by filling the gap between technology and healthcare professionals. Within this mission they provide healthcare professionals of hospitals with innovative e-health and m-health applications. Medicatie-veiligheid.nl is a web-based e-learning application that supports health care professionals in enlarging their knowledge in the field of the safe use of medication. At the moment, the system is used by four hospitals in the Netherlands. Since September 2013, medicatie-veiligheid.nl is part of Reconcept.

Jürgen Visser

Jürgen Visser (LinkedIn) Jürgen is an innovator in e-health and e-learning applications, dreaming big and working passionately on user-friendly solutions that shape the way IT is used in hospitals. He has extensive experience as an IT entrepreneur in the medical area. Having had basic medical training, he is able to connect the two fields in a unique way. His great strength is concept development from start to finish improving on problematic areas.

Marie-Louise Kok

Marie-Louise Kok (LinkedIn) Marie-Louise develops innovative solutions around new IT products and solutions using the Lean Startup method. She has experienced roles of agile coach, founder, team leader and concept/product owner. Her process expertise spans a broad spectrum of topics from customer discovery and validation, prototype development and creation, to business development, launch and marketing. The last 4 years she has been busy in the area of (e-)learning, setting up a.o. the company Ucourse.nl for online learning. She also acts as adviser on new digital products and services for learning.

Frits Wijbenga

Dr. Frits Wijbenga (LinkedIn)Frits is the Business Development manager and Financial manager of Business Generator Groningen, which commercializes knowledge generated at the University of Groningen and University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG) through technology transfer, initiating collaborations with companies and new company creation. Wijbenga holds a PhD in Venture Capital from the University of Groningen and his expertise mainly lies in Strategy, Finance, Business planning, Management consulting and New Business Development